In 2009 Kasey Kahne drove the #9 Budweiser Dodge for Richard Petty Motorsports Getty Images/Sam Greenwood
What a year, a new owner in Richard Petty, a couple of wins, and a return to Ford’s for a guy who probably isn’t all that happy about any of it. 2010 will mark the third season in a row that there has been an ownership change on Kasey’s #9 team. On top of that every driver contract for the newly merged Yates/Richard Petty Motorsports are up at the end of the year.
It seems that this will be the last season for Kahne in the #9 car. He has a strenuous relationship with Ford at best, is looking to take the next step in his career, and his team has been anything but stable. The good news is Kahne will be able to write his own ticket to any team in Cup garage, and many of the super teams would fire a driver to put Kahne in the seat.
However that is 2010 talk; let us take a look back at 2009. Kahne completed 97% of the lap’s runs in 2009. 57.8% of those were run in the top 15 and 81.4% of them were run on the lead lap. His average running position was 15th, and his final drivers rating was 87.5.
In 2009 he won 5.6 million dollars on the strength of two wins, seven top 5, and fourteen top 10 finishes. He also won two poles, had an average start of 11.8 and an average finish of 15.8.
Sure he returned Richard Petty to Victory Lane, but he doesn’t seem happy, and the instability of his race team may be getting to him. Kasey also ran five races in the Nationwide Series for Todd Braun. He will return to Braun Racing in 2010 for at least half the schedule in the #38 car. That is a reunion of sorts as he previously ran the #38 car for Brad Akins before those two teams merged.
Kahne is without a doubt one of the rising stars in NASCAR. He has won two races in each of the last two years, and as Ford gets his new engine program online he will look to do better than that in 2010.
2009 Sprint Cup series in review
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